Saturday, November 22, 2014

Practicing Awareness of Microaggression



In the media segment, Dr. Sue defined microaggressions as verbal behaviors usually containing an insulting message to women, people of color, gay or lesbians intentionally or unintentionally that may cause severe or psychological stress and harm. (Laureate Education 2011). 
I am employed at a non-profit organization where mostly African Americans and sometimes homeless children attend. Despite how some people my just see us as daycare, we do a lot more than normal childcare centers. We have 2 Georgia Funded Pre-K programs, a community outreach team, health coordinators, parent social committee coordinators, and a safety committee. Most of the committees are filled with teachers within the program whom all work together to make out program a success.

About two weeks ago the speech therapist, whom is a white female that, comes regularly to our school maybe twice a week and who also knows all about our program complemented us on how awesome of a job she thinks we are doing. She stated, “I’ve never been into a low income school that is as dedicated as you ladies are. I am so stunned at how much you all value education and also how the parents in this area participate. You don’t usually find that in a lot of rural neighborhoods.”
The only thing I could do was to say thank you, smile, and walk away.

 I feel as though this was a microinsult. Even though she was consciously giving us compliments I feel as she was unconsciously saying that most African Americans do not value education and that the teachers of these schools are lazy and aren’t passionate into teaching these kids because there is not hope. As an education professional I feel that we should take our job seriously and to not have biases towards children because we are there to help them and no matter of the economic status they all have a chance.


Gaining the knowledge of microaggressions effected my perception that stereotypes have a huge influence on the way we discriminate and also the prejudices we have against each other because it has an impact how we perceive one another. We often treat people unfair and think that it’s justified because of a specific stereotype that we may believe about them. We must overcome stereotypes by becoming aware of thoughts and feelings that we have about one another and the behavior it may bring about. It is important to get the facts on the individual and not look at them as a group.

Reference
Laureate Education (Producer). (2011). Microaggressions in everyday life [Video file]. Retrieved from https://class.waldenu.edu

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